So Andy's back in town, swung by to check out the jeep and chat for a while. and drop off more parts! I now have the 14B hubs/drums, recentered H1's and the tires to go with them.

Today I got a wee bit of work done in the garage, just some smaller stuff I can do without straining my other arm too much. I drilled out the steering arms @ 6.25" from kingpin center to match Andy's 5.5" long pitman arm as per specs I've found online for full lock to lock steering. I upped them to just under a half inch, but I'm going to need Andy's chevy taper reamer to finish them off. I also later took the plasma to the axle side track bar bracket and cut out the notch needed for tie rod clearance. I have a piece of tube that will be getting welded in for the extra support. Once those are done, the front axle finally gets it's final rebuild/install! Gears, locker, kingpin kits, new wheel bearings and all!

On the rear axle I just need to finish shaving the ring gear, maybe grind the outside of the locker just a hair to allow more clearance around the shave, then i can install the gears in the 14B and do the final install on it!

While the truck is in pieces, I think it's pretty dang close to being driveable!

On the 14B:
-Rear drums got turned and it was all cleaned, being reassembled tonight
-The carrier and ring gear fit into the shave now, though I don't like how little clearance we have on it, so I'll be opening it up for just a bit more clearance.
-The pinion support is all built with the new bearings and pinion
This means I'm cleaning the housing out tomorrow and setting up the gears. If it all goes smooth, there's a chance the rear axle can go under the truck for the final time tomorrow!

Front 60:
-Steering arms drilled and reamed to accept the 1 ton ends
-Track bar mount notched for tie rod
-New kingpin races are in, tomorrow the kingpins go in, the knuckles and steering arms go on for good. Then we can get to measuring for extending the tie rod.
-Just got the bearing puller tonight so I can make setup bearings out of the old pinion and carrier bearings, then get to the gear setup on it and get it under the truck!

Other things:
We've got a 1330 CV shaft for the rear, and a 1310 shaft for the front with some conversion joints to mate to the axles. Should be on it's feet and under it's own power in no time! *cough* Haha

Unfortunately, the plans are no longer for KOH. There have been a couple small factors fighting us along the way, but the big kicker came yesterday when we reassessed the tires Andy had set aside for the build, and none of us are comfortable letting him put any road miles on them. They are dryrotted beyond any sort of comfort zone, especially considering he was going to be loaded DOWN for the trip.

I'm still working on it, and the overall schedule has not changed much, I'll just be changing over to my WJ here soon to get it prepped for KOH. For Andy's, I'm actually working on the front 60 gears today. I've got 'em pretty close after a few patterns with the setup bearings. Soon I'll be putting the new bearings on for real! Once the 60 is geared is when I start working on the WJ.

Yeah I know, but luckily there is one upside to it. We get to do the build the right way, like doing the hydro assist now instead of later, making sure things aren't rushed together, everything will be done and done for good. As a bonus I found the sweet spot for the dana 60 gears today, got a good pattern with acceptable backlash so tomorrow I'm putting all the new bearings in, putting it together to run another pattern and if all is good I might even drag it under the ZJ before class tomorrow. Once we get some spindle studs we've been waiting on we can get the knuckles installed with the hubs, rotors, calipers and high steer arms!

I'll probably be satisfied just getting the gears done and getting it under for now though, so I can start the prep work on my WJ!

I tack welded the old carrier races to some scrap metal so I could shave the ring gear as it wouldn't fit in the housing

It spun up very well, I was a little curious what it would do if I purposely knocked it loose at like 2000RPM's lol... I'd probably find it a mile away.

And this is from yesterdays work on the Dana 60 gears. I made setup bearings out of all the old stuff so this has been awesome compared to what I'm used to. The drive side is dead nuts centered, and I'm sitting with about .007-.008 backlash

The coast side is a wee bit off, but it doesn't look terrible. If anything I feel it might need a thicker pinion shim, what do you guys say?

It's just about where I left it, with the front gears all set up. We put a halt on it right before King of the Hammers and the deadline is lifted so the pace has slowed. I've been building a table for my torchmate over hte past week, but that's pretty much finished up as of yesterday! That means I can change directions back to this jeep here pretty soon.

I'm pulling the front gears back out, getting them (attatched to the locker), the 14b gears, and maybe some other parts cryo treated by a local guy. I'm thinking while he has them I'll do the final installation of the front 60 housing as I can reinstall the gears with it in place no problem Then the front'll be pretty much ready except for the final button up stuff! The rear needs the gears set up and housing bolted in after the cryo. Soon enough!